


the funeral in your veins

by Acacius



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Feelings Realization, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, but don't worry it all gets resolved & nandor only almost gets stabbed with a stake so... win-win?, edit: forgot these tags omg, nandor's chronic foot-in-mouth disease comes out in full force, oh & nandor's pyrokinesis ability gets time to shine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26320639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acacius/pseuds/Acacius
Summary: One day, Guillermo would die. Perhaps they needed to discuss this a bit more intimately, Nandor thought.Or: Nandor struggles to voice the reason as to why he refuses to turn Guillermo.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Comments: 15
Kudos: 119





	the funeral in your veins

_I think I could love you 'til the day that you die  
If you let me love you when the timing is right  
And if they said I had to, I swear I'd wait my whole life  
I think I could love you 'til the day that you die  
  
They say don't open old wounds  
But this is still brand new  
And I've got nothing left to lose besides you  
 **I've already lost you once, what more could you do?**_

_-Old Wounds, PVRIS_

_._

_._

“Do you still want to become a vampire?” Nandor asks, the first time he has ever brought up the elephant in the room without prompting. What he means is: _Do you still want to die?_

Guillermo’s hands falter at the clasp of Nandor’s black cloak as he looks up at him and Nandor wishes, silly enough, that he could read Guillermo’s thoughts. Like Twilight. Ever since Guillermo revealed himself to be a descendant of Van Helsing, there had been a strange sort of tension between them. Guillermo was becoming more and more unreadable by the day, splitting his time between tending to Nandor and traipsing around with his vampire hunter friends. He didn’t question Guillermo’s loyalty to him, but he did question whether or not Guillermo genuinely wanted to be his familiar any longer.

“That depends. Are you… are you _offering_ to turn me?”

Nandor sucks in an unnecessary breath. His eyes trail automatically to the fluttering pulse at Guillermo’s neck, at the smooth skin there, and imagines what it might feel like to press his teeth to the fragile network of capillaries underneath. He wonders what it might taste like—if Guillermo would be as honeysuckle sweet as his scent hinted at. When Nandor was human, he had a sweet tooth that he indulged whenever possible; that hadn’t changed much as a vampire.

“…Perhaps,” Nandor eventually replies, stepping away from Guillermo and the temptation that had plagued him for over eleven years. “That is what I promised, is it not?”

Guillermo takes a step forward. And then another one. Nandor is immediately reminded of when Guillermo had cornered him in his crypt after Benjy’s arrival. There is a near righteous fury in his eyes, something that burns brighter than the candles in the room. “I’m ready, then. I’ve been ready for eleven years, Nandor.”

“I am not sure I believe you,” Nandor admits, shrinking back despite himself. He watches with thinly veiled interest as Guillermo stalks forward. He thinks that Guillermo will simply back him into the armchair again, but he does something decidedly worse.

Wordlessly, Guillermo snatches the dagger off the antique table. A flash of cold, dark understanding flickers across Nandor’s face as his familiar brings the sharp end of the blade to his left wrist. He almost wishes that Guillermo had simply brought the dagger to his neck; that would be an easier betrayal to understand. It is one thing for Guillermo to slit the vampire’s throat in anger—it is something else entirely for him to try and hurt himself.

“ _No_ ,” Nandor hisses, right hand encircling Guillermo’s wrist with almost enough force to bruise. “You are not allowed to pull that _shit_.”

He had been a vampire for a long time, long enough to know just how much pressure was needed to bruise human skin, how easy it was to lose control and accidentally crush bone. Nandor does neither of these things; he squeezes once, twice, three times before Guillermo reflexively drops the dagger, fingers flexing futilely in his grasp.

Nandor narrows his eyes, a rare harshness overtaking his tone. He sounds like his old self, Nandor the fierce human warlord, not Nandor the vampire who made glitter portraits in his spare time. “What? Did you think I would lose control and eat you the moment I smelled your delicious, virginal blood? And then I would be forced to turn you because _Oh no, I drank too much_?” His mouth settles into a hard line. “ _Never_ pull a stunt like that again.”

What Nandor means but doesn’t say is: _Please don’t make me choose—not yet. I do not want to lose you. The human you. I am not ready for that._

Guillermo does not reply for a long time. He opens his mouth and then closes it, eventually settling on a weary sigh. “You’re never going to turn me,” he says simply, as if it’s a clear statement of fact.

“Do you really want to die that badly?” Nandor snaps, a vulnerable sort of rage overtaking him. He is reminded of the days leading up to his death, how he had recklessly ignored all council and rushed headlong into enemy territory only to get lost in the barren mountains. He hadn’t been chasing death back then—at least not consciously, but the outcome had been the same. The specters of fame and glory fell away in the night, revealing themselves for what they were: omens of death. War could only end in bloodshed and Nandor had drained his last bit of luck long ago.

Only Nandor had come out of the mountains that night—cold, broken, and with the taste of his army’s blood on his lips. In hindsight, he could see it all so clearly. His hubris had toppled him, sent him falling from his throne of corpses, and there had been no one to pick up the pieces. More than seven hundred years later and Nandor was intimately aware of death, of how it hid in the periphery like a shadow, ready to swoop down and drink its fill.

How could Guillermo not see it? He had spent a decade at death’s door, attending to vampires and corpses, becoming familiar with how little really separated vampires from the lifeless husks he buried in the backyard. There was a funeral in his veins and every day brought his heart closer to its final beat. Nandor did not want to rush it any further. Was it really that selfish of him, wanting to draw out the days with Guillermo at his side as a living, breathing human?

Vampires were stubborn creatures by nature—most did not change much from the moment their human self died. But Guillermo effortlessly adapted to the world, allowed himself to float through currents of time as gently as a boat in placid waters. That would inevitably change when he became a vampire.

Guillermo curses. “You’re fucking _i_ _mpossible_. Just admit that you’re stringing me along already! Vampires don’t turn their familiars; you just use us until we die.”

“That’s not true! I turned Benjy!”

Guillermo glares at him in a way that looks as if he’s moments away from thrusting a stake through his heart. “You did _what?_ "

Nandor gives a sheepish grin, holding up his hands in what he hopes is a placating manner. He hadn’t meant to spill the beans about Benjy, but when had he ever been good at lying? “Yes, I turned Benjy. He was whining so much and if I had to hear one more thing about golf I was going to lose my mind.”

“So you turned him to shut him up?” Guillermo asks, incredulous. He threw his arms up. “What the actual fuck, Nandor?”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t care about Benjy. He can go do vampire shit all by himself. But I don’t want to lose you—“ Nandor stops abruptly, hissing to himself. How did he keep putting his fucking foot in his mouth?

“Lose me?” Guillermo echoes, gaze softening.

“Forget I said anything," Nandor says, waving a hand, an encroaching sense of shame overtaking him. If he were human, he was sure that his face would be red with embarrassment. 

“I’m not going anywhere—I promise,” Guillermo asserts, once again crowding into Nandor’s personal space. It never feels awkward—Nandor was used to Guillermo’s presence, to the way he lingered in every room, as if their orbits were inextricably tangled together. There was a magnetism between them, how they always seemed to drift closer when no one else was in the room.

It was happening again, he realized, the desire to reach out and touch him near impossible to ignore. This time, he lets himself indulge. Nandor’s hand drifts idly through Guillermo’s hair, twirling an errant curl with his index finger. A flash of silver slips through his grasp as he settles the flat of his palm against the warm skin of Guillermo’s cheek.

“I’ve noticed that you have another grey hair.” What he wants to say is: _How can I believe you? One way or another, you will leave me. You’ve left me before. I don’t want to feel that pain again._

“ _Oh,_ ” Guillermo breathes, face flushed. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Nandor relishes the way that his familiar’s heart thuds a tad bit faster in his chest, a telltale sign that Guillermo too felt something when they were alone together. How many times had he taken his familiar’s strong, comforting heartbeat for granted? It was his favorite lullaby, a steady rhythm that he would know anywhere. Guillermo could be in a room with thousands of humans and Nandor was sure he’d be able to find him from the sound of his heart alone.

Nandor frowns, thumb grazing almost imperceptibly at the slope of Guillermo’s jaw. How much longer did he have until he was forced to make a choice? To either kill the man before him with his own teeth, or to stand aside and watch him age and die a slow human death half a century from now. Neither option sat well with him, if he were being truthful.

“I do not like it. With grey hair comes aching bones and weakening strength. How much time until you become like Benjy, too weak to even open up the lid of my coffin?”

Guillermo does not respond. There is a shine to his eyes that Nandor recognizes as the beginning of tears.

His voice comes out softer than he means it to. A human’s tears shouldn’t affect him—but like everything when it came to Guillermo, he was proving to be a vexing exception to the rules Nandor had built over literal centuries of time. “Guillermo… why do you want to be a vampire?”

Guillermo’s head bolts up, brown eyes wide with something that reminds Nandor of guilt.

“I-I don’t really know anymore. It’s just something I’ve always wanted. Isn’t that enough?” The undercurrent of desperation in his voice is so thick that Nandor can almost taste it.

 _Isn’t that enough?_ Nandor echoes to himself. _Is desire enough? What will you do once you have what you’ve always wanted? What will you do when you realize it isn’t anything like you imagined?_

When Nandor was much younger, back when he had more years as a human than a vampire under his belt, he had indulged in a bit of a mean streak. The decade or so of cruelty had only enflamed the legends surrounding him, but there were still humans that were oblivious to who and what he was. During that time, Nandor had listened to hundreds of humans babble out their last, hopeless pleas as he drank his fill with leisurely levity. The tone of Guillermo’s voice rings disturbingly close to what he had heard then.

He does not like the thought of Guillermo as a human expiring in his lap nor the visual association it brings: a corpse’s sickly pallor, blue lips, wet, glossy, unseeing eyes. Guillermo was Guillermo _because_ of his humanness, not in spite of it. He would not be the same as a corpse—or a vampire. There would be no more sunlight-warmed skin, no more fluttering heartbeats, no more flushed cheeks, no more baking flour on the tips of his fingers, no more bruised knees or bleeding knuckles.

But Guillermo would be with him. He would exist in a tangible form, in a way that Nandor could selfishly keep for himself. _Isn’t that enough?_ he thinks—hopes in a way that is dangerously close to a prayer, the faintest touch of brimstone crowding his throat. The pain is, for once, welcomed.

“Eternity is a long time,” Nandor eventually replies, fingers pressing lightly against Guillermo’s galloping pulse. There’s a unique tiredness in his expression that ages him, a glimpse into the ancient, world-weariness that comes with living far beyond the stretch of a human life. “I will not be your executioner, Guillermo. I have done that far too many times in the past and I am tired of it.”

Confusion flickers across Guillermo’s face. “Wait, what do you mean? You’ve… you’ve _killed_ familiars before?”

Nandor is dimly aware of the way he withdraws, hand curling protectively against his chest, hovering just above his dead heart. Centuries had passed, but the ache remained. What was there to say? He had been young, naïve, and desperately lonely—he had turned people out of selfishness and had reaped the evils he had sown. He had watched as his first vampiric child was consumed by flames, unable to reconcile the enormity of his newfound hunger, mind fractured beyond repair.

“You have always reminded me of my first ever familiar. I gave him what he thought he wanted and he cursed me with his last undying breath,” Nandor admits, the memory sending a cold shiver down his spine.

Something like understanding flickers across Guillermo’s face.

“I would never do that. _Never._ I want this. I’ve always wanted this—I don’t want to die!” Guillermo’s voice rises with every word as hot tears spill down his cheeks. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to grow old. I want to _live_. I want to be here, by your side, for as long as I can.“

A flare of longing settles in the pit of his stomach at hearing the very words he had secretly dreamed of slip unbidden from his familiar’s mouth. Nandor clenches his fists, lips pulling away to reveal the elongated edge of his fangs. He feels it all at once and much too suddenly—love, hunger, the place where these two feelings bleed together. He feels his teeth ripping through the soft flesh of his tongue, his own blood pooling in his mouth. _It’s too much,_ he thinks, watching as the candles within the crypt extinguish one by one, bathing the room in darkness.

“M-Master?” Guillermo questions, hesitant, reverting back to the safety of old, familiar habits.

The title coming from Guillermo’s mouth nearly unravels him. There was a time in his life where all else would fall away at the sound of his familiar calling for him, back when he had assumed that Guillermo was as vulnerable as a wounded animal in a den of lions. Not even the heavy veil of sleep could keep him away, Guillermo’s voice piercing through the dark like a bright, warm flame. A flame he had spent over a decade protecting from all the other walking horrors of the night in his own roundabout way.

Nandor thought of himself as a dagger underneath a pillow—he did not make a show of his attachment to Guillermo, did not let others peer too close and see just how far he would go for the human, but he was there all the same, silent and deadly, ready to cut down whoever was foolish enough to try and hurt his familiar.

But Guillermo had never really needed rescuing. He had never been a wounded animal; no, he was the honey within the ribs of a slain lion. His sweetness was a weapon, biologically engineered to lure vampires in with the promise of an easy meal. Nandor wondered what Guillermo would do now, blind to the monster in the room—the monster his bloodline was crafted to destroy.

Nandor lunges.

There is a brief cry of surprise as Guillermo tumbles backwards, head hitting the wooden floor hard enough to cause even Nandor to wince. Truthfully, he had been aiming to push Guillermo into the soft, fur lining of the open coffin, but had missed his mark by a few degrees, give or take.

The touch of sharpened wood against his ribs does not surprise him as much as he thought it would. If anything, Nandor feels an odd rush of relief.

“Fuck,” Guillermo breathes, straining to see Nandor’s looming frame in the dark. Every muscle in his body seems taut with tension, as if he was struggling to keep his body motionless.

Nandor knew the feeling very well. Every day he had to ignore the urge to devour Guillermo. He made it look almost effortless nowadays, but in the beginning he had walked as stiffly as a soldier, forcing himself to look at Guillermo’s face and not the smooth column of his throat—had even needed to flee the room at the first drop of Guillermo’s blood. How strange that they would become so important to each other despite their opposing natures.

Experimentally, Nandor presses closer to Guillermo and hisses as the stake pierces through the intricate brocade fabric, a few drops of blood dripping down the wood and onto Guillermo’s trembling fingers.

“What are you doing?” Guillermo seethes, the pressure from the stake easing away as the man recoils with a shudder, blindly throwing the piece of wood across the floor. It clatters and rolls away into the dark and Nandor is seized by the sudden desire to chase after it, to put the stake back in Guillermo’s grasp and see just how far his little vampire slayer would go.

It shouldn’t excite him, the thought of a stake against his heart, but it does. He knows Guillermo is to blame.

Nandor leans in again, cold breath fanning over Guillermo’s face. His eyes flash a bright, vivid gold as he stares down at the human beneath him. The very sight of him splayed out below, glasses askew, mouth agape, heartbeat thundering in the heavy silence of the crypt stirs a maelstrom of conflicting feelings within Nandor. A selfish part of him wants to bury his teeth into the soft, yielding flesh of his throat. The more human part of him wants to press their mouths together, drink up the pleasured sounds that would undoubtedly follow.

“Tell me what you want, Guillermo,” Nandor says instead with his last fraying thread of control.

“ _You—only you,”_ Guillermo whispers back and Nandor feels something in his undead heart clench at the sheer earnestness in his familiar’s unguarded expression.

A low, desperate growl rips from his throat as he presses his mouth to Guillermo’s rapid pulse. He lets his teeth lightly skim the flesh there, relishing in the way his familiar arches into the touch. A moment later he feels Guillermo’s hands tangle blindly in his hair, tugging him closer.

He can’t help but chuckle as he presses a feather-light kiss against Guillermo’s throat. “Patience, Guillermo. The night is still young.”

“ _Please_ ,” he near begs, angling his neck to the side. It is as much of an invitation as Nandor had ever gotten from a human—at least a human who genuinely knew what he was—and it is only due to years of self-control in Guillermo’s presence that he doesn’t change his mind then and there. There had never been someone as tempting as Guillermo in his life and the worst part was that he knew that Guillermo wasn’t even trying to tempt him.

“You should know that I do not plan on turning you tonight,” Nandor murmurs, giving Guillermo a consolatory kiss on the forehead. “We need to… talk. More. There are things we must prepare. Like a death certificate.”

“Death certificate…?” Guillermo trails dreamily, fingers combing reverently through Nandor’s hair. It is obvious that the weight of the words hadn’t settled in yet.

Nandor purrs contentedly in response, pressing kisses to every available inch of skin. He nips a line up Guillermo’s throat before finally slotting their lips together, drinking up the handful of moans that Guillermo makes. A sharp wave of desire burns in his core as he deepens the kiss, fangs teasing his familiar’s plump lower lip. When he pulls back to let Guillermo breathe, a mischievous glimmer flickers in his eyes. “Do not worry… there are other things I would like to do with you tonight. Though preferably in my coffin. It is very unhygienic to be rolling around on the floor—and your poor human back! I do not wish for you to experience back pain like Benjy told me about. It sounds very unpleasant.”

“Can we _please_ not talk about Benjy right now?” Guillermo asks, not waiting for a response before tugging Nandor into another searing kiss.

A few moments later, Nandor is carrying Guillermo to his coffin, lips curled in a wolfish grin. With a snap of his fingers, the candles around the coffin reignite, bathing the crypt in a warm, orange glow. He preens under the look of sheer adoration in Guillermo’s face. So there were still some things that he could do that would coax out the same flicker of awe he saw so often back when Guillermo first became his familiar.

“Ready?” Nandor asks softly, leaning above him in the coffin.

Guillermo nods, cheeks flushing pink. “I… I”ve been wanting this since the very day I became your familiar,” he admits sheepishly.

He knows that his fanged grin probably looked menacing, as if he were moments away from devouring his prey. But he trusts that Guillermo knows better.

“Even more so than becoming a vampire?” Nandor teases, pressing a soft kiss to the vulnerable skin of Guillermo’s wrist with a chuckle.

“Have you wanted this more than you’ve wanted my blood?” Guillermo taunts back, fingers trailing down the vampire’s chest to brush against his hips. He draws distracting circles into the fabric of his trousers, making it difficult for Nandor to focus on anything other than the feeling of Guillermo underneath him, so warm and impossibly soft.

“That’s not fair,” Nandor whines. “I asked you first, Guiller—”

A drawn-out hiss falls from his mouth as Guillermo nips experimentally at his throat, blunt human teeth pressing down hard enough to leave an imprint. The brief twinge of pain only elicits a groan of pleasure. How did Guillermo know precisely how to unravel him?

“Imagine what it will feel like when I have fangs,” Guillermo whispers, biting down harder—almost hard enough to draw blood.

This time, he is met with a flash of gold eyes and black sclera, Nandor’s face taking on a more vampiric appearance. Guillermo’s heart rate quickens, pupils dilating, and Nandor can’t help but bask in his human’s reaction, enjoying the way Guillermo arches towards him rather than flinching away.

“You’re playing with fire, Guillermo,” Nandor warns, though not even the harsh, elongated shadows on his face can hide the softness in his expression.

When he brings his lips to Guillermo’s, it’s with a surprising amount of gentleness. His heart aches in his chest again, but it’s a good ache, he thinks. If he was brave, he might even call it love. This was enough, for now. He would have Guillermo any way he would let him—and one day, he would make him a vampire. They would share the same blood, a bond that could not be severed even by magic, and they would live together for as long as the universe allowed. It was a promise he fully intended to keep.

* * *

**_Approximately 2 years later…_ **

There is a tombstone with the name _Guillermo de la Cruz_ etched in cursive. Six feet underneath, there is a coffin, but it has always been empty.

“Happy funeral day, Guillermo!” Nandor grins, brandishing a messy bouquet of red roses that he had hidden behind his back. They look handpicked, which warms his heart in an unexpected way—even if it was likely that Nandor had simply stolen them from a stranger’s garden on the way to the cemetery.

Guillermo rolls his eyes good-naturedly, taking the bouquet in hand. He accidentally pricks his index finger on a thorn and Nandor swoops down to grasp his wrist, touch gentle but firm. Guillermo does not need to look at the other man’s face to know what he wants.

“Go ahead,” Guillermo sighs, fondness creeping into his tone despite himself.

The vampire brings his lips to the bead of blood, gently swiping his tongue against the wound until it clots. He then presses an open-mouthed kiss to Guillermo’s knuckles, the sharp points of his fangs teasing the skin there before he pulls away.

“Thank you, Guillermo,” Nandor murmurs, gaze heartbreakingly soft.

Guillermo nods, feeling himself fall for the vampire just a little bit more. He didn’t know he could ever love someone this much—with every fiber of his being down to the very atoms that cradled him into existence—but he did. He might have been doomed from the start, he thinks, gazing into the vampire’s dark, bewitching eyes. But he didn’t mind. They were destined, bound together, all that was left was to seal it in blood.

Nandor holds out his hand. “Are you ready to die now?”

Guillermo looks at the grave. He’s done everything on his list. His mother had inherited a great deal of money after he died, mostly due to Nandor’s ancient coin collection. She would live comfortably for the rest of her natural human lifespan. He had said his goodbyes to the Staten Island Mosquito Club, feigning that he was moving out of state. Hopefully they wouldn’t go digging for more information… figuratively or literally. Even the Vampiric Council had finally let them rest, believing him to be truly dead thanks to the expertly doctored death certificate that Colin Robinson had made for him. It was disturbingly obvious that the energy vampire had a lot of practice making them.

A brief tug of melancholy settles in his heart. There are things he’ll miss. Like his family. His mother’s home-cooked meals. The feeling of sunlight against his skin. Homemade pies and cakes, the way he’d trail flour all through the house to his vampire housemates’ shared displeasure. Sleeping in a regular bed—perhaps he could still have that, if he convinced Nandor that a coffin really wasn’t necessary, especially if he slept in the basement. There was a lot he knew he was going to miss about being human, but he had made peace with it all long ago.

“Yeah. I guess I am,” he says eventually, rubbing away a final few tears with the sleeve of his sweater. He can’t help but grin as his fingers lace with Nandor’s, a thrum of giddiness overtaking his once somber continence. A lot had changed in two years, but one thing had remained the same: he trusted Nandor. He would be alright; Nandor would make sure of it.

They walk hand in hand into the night. Guillermo does not look back. 

**Author's Note:**

> What didn’t make it into the fic: 
> 
> • Nadja, Laszlo, and Colin Robinson decorating the foyer with cheap Halloween decorations and pinning a generic Happy Birthday! banner across the top of the stairs, except Birthday! is crossed out in sharpie and replaced with Deathday! 
> 
> • Nandor having to lock the door to his crypt because all his nosy housemates wanted to watch him turn Guillermo—partly because they do care for Guillermo and want to show their support, but also because they knew it would piss Nandor off lmao
> 
> • Nandor in bat form peering over hedges, looking for roses to bring Guillermo and nearly flying face-first into a fence. 
> 
> • A five-minute interlude where Nandor chastises Guillermo for trying to cut himself with a dagger that is over 700 years old. “It’s unhygienic, Guilleeerrrmmmooo! You’ll get the sepsis! And do you know what the sepsis does? It makes your blood very unappetizing to vampires which is very rude!”


End file.
